Re: Article: Scientists get their own Google

From: Tomasso makes things (tom_at_r.so.com)
Date: 11/27/04 

Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 09:50:28 GMT

"Gregory L. Hansen" <glhansen@steel.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote:
> Tomasso <tom@r.so.com> wrote:
>>So, why whinge? Well, I think the free (reviewed) journals (espec web)
>>are the way of the future. It's not a cause created by penny pinching
>>skinflints like me, it's a matter of rationalising the content and flow of
>>scientific communication.
>
> Note that scholar.google.com will give you references and abstracts, and
> that a lot of hits are *not* to free journals. If it's a free journal you
> can get the article, otherwise you only get the abstract. E.g. I just did
> a search on

Agreed.

BUT the quality of abstract writing has slipped a lot over the years.

With average impact of 1.1 for many physics papers, there is an awful lot
of drivel out there.

I know (and so do all of the other readers) of authors who publish the same,
re-cycled paper maybe six times. Sometimes they are on the editorial board.
Often reviewers. Shame on them. [And the pressures that cause it].

> ...And some that are on-line don't go back
> very far, like the Med J Australia which I think goes back to 2001, while
> I wanted an article from 1991.

Yes, and occasionally that paper from the 1950s is REALLY hard to find.
Not a lot of content before 1994 is in online or "green" publications

The future must mean the dominance of "green" journal.

BTW: Santa Fe Institute recently referred to publication policies with mention
of "Green" policies (so authors can release either preprints, prints, or both):

They noted publication policies may be checked here:

http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php?all=yes

{eg, by authors prior to submitting).

Tomasso.

[PS: years back, I was working on sensitivities of Monte Carlo simulation methods
for atomic liquids, to some technical assumptions, and fluctuations based on
small number constraints (10^3 or 10^4 particles). I actually read Metropolis's
original paper and wondered how few authors (who referred to it) had actually
seen it! Evident in their papers was some weaknesses revealing that they hadn't].